Ad Litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers

by Mark D. Jordan, Kent Emery Jr.

No one doubts that the reading of authoritative texts lay at the centre of medieval theology, philosophy, and letters; repeated efforts to explain that reading, however, have not been persuasive. The 14 contributors to "Ad litterum" address the medieval interpretation and use of authoritative texts in the different disciplines united by the medieval practice of reading. The authors share the intention to recover medieval readings as they would want to be recovered. Thus the essays suggest that the present-day reader must replace presumptions about historically pure reading or critically creative reading with the different assumptions evident in the learned culture of the Middle Ages. Central among these assumptions are the analogies of reading that bind together medieval letters, philosophy, and theology. Contributors M.T Gibson, Daniel I. Sheerin, Marcia L. Colish, Stephen Gersh, G.R. Evans, R.H. Rouse and M.A. Rouse, Siegfried Wenzel, L.-J. Bataillon, O.P., Stephen F. Brown, Albert Zimmermann, Mark D. Jordan, Raymond Macken, O.F.M., A.J. Minnis, and Kent Enery, Jr.

380 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 1992

About the author

Mark D. Jordan is the Andrew Mellon Professor of Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His focus is on European philosophy, gender studies, and sexuality. Much of his early work related to Catholic teachings of Thomas Aquinas. In recent years, he has more specifically focused on religious doctrine and its relation to LGBT issues.

In addition to his scholarship and classroom teaching, Jordan has discussed sexual and religious issues to audiences that range from college lectureships to National Public Radio, the New York Times, and CNN.

Jordan won the annual Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction for his 2011 book, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality.

Prior to his return to Harvard in 2014, Jordan had held endowed professorships at Emory, Washington University at St. Louis, Notre Dame and at Harvard. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays grant (Spain), a Luce Fellowship in Theology, and a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Jordan received his BA from St. John’s College and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He grew up in Dallas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas.